Reliance Jio’s entry with free voice and data has led to a brutal price war in the telecom industry, hurting revenue and profitability of incumbents amid ballooning debt, increasing the sector’s share of non-performing assets, which is a cause for worry, the Economic Survey said.

Jio’s pricing scheme “forced incumbent telecom firms” to cut voice call rates and cost of 1GB data to average $1.9 during January-March 2017, the survey added. Adjusted gross revenue of the top three telecom companies in India – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular – fell sequentially by 7.98 per cent, 5.14 per cent and 4.91 per cent respectively in the third quarter of FY17.